


Hey, remember that time we...

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Bonding, Childfree Character, Childless character, Comfort Food, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Infertility, Music as a vehicle to memory, Safe Spaces, Talking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of very loosely connected stories about friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We should do this again sometime.

**Author's Note:**

> Contains some background het, including Bruce/Betty and Pepper/Tony. I've decided not to tag for these because they aren't the focus, but fair warning for those who dislike these particular ships.

When Betty spots her, Pepper is in the Starbucks on the mezzanine level of the tower, standing in front of the creamers, staring down at her grande cup of coffee like she has no idea what to do with it.

Betty hesitates. They are, technically, housemates, if such a term can be applied when the house in question is a ten story mansion comprised of a number of smaller apartments and common rooms sitting atop one of the wonders of the modern world. Betty and Pepper have exchanged maybe five hundred words since Betty moved in, half of them during the initial introduction, and the rest as idle pleasantries when they both happened to be in the elevator at the same time. They aren't exactly close, but there's something tired and lost and a little broken about Pepper right now that makes Betty hurt, that makes her want to help.

She hefts her bag onto her other hip and crosses to the Starbucks.

"Hey."

Pepper looks up. "Hi?"

"I bought enough for two, but then Bruce called and said he wasn't coming home until tomorrow, so now I have extra."

Pepper blinks at her, confusion crossing her face. Betty can see the dark circles under her eyes. She doesn't know Pepper Potts, not really, but she knows that she's quick on the uptake and never lets herself be seen at anything less than her best. Something is decidedly wrong.

"Do you want to join me for dinner?" Betty asks, keeping it simple and direct, like she does for Bruce when he's coming up from the murky depths of a transformation.

"Oh, um...yes. Yes, I'd like that."

Betty grins, more pleased than she expected. It's been a long while since she had a female friend. It's been a long while since she had anyone but Bruce and the occasional email or phone call to Len. She doesn't regret her decision to leave it all behind for the life of the fugitive girlfriend. She had her reasons, and they don't begin and end with Bruce Banner no matter what anyone may think. Still, it's nice to believe that she might be able to start expanding her social circle again.

They ride up in silence. Pepper is clutching her coffee but not drinking it, and staring off into space with a look of sheer exhaustion layered over something deeper and sadder. Betty kicks off her shoes as soon as they get to the suite that she shares with Bruce. Pepper follows suit, losing about five inches in the process. The weather recently turned cold, but Pepper isn't wearing stockings. She curls her toes into the thick carpeting with a little sigh.

Betty can't help staring a little. She's always had an aesthetic attraction to beautiful women. Pepper is all lean muscle, and so perfectly put together it hurts. She slips off her tailored jacket and underneath she has on a sleeveless white blouse with just a hint of feminine detailing at the neck. It's tucked into a blue pencil skirt. Betty feels plain and unsophisticated in her jeans and the worn sweater that she took from Bruce's side of the closet, and she has to remind herself that it's a _good thing_ that she's put on ten pounds since she returned to the States.

She looks away before she can make Pepper uncomfortable and says all the standard things about Pepper making herself at home. It's a nice apartment, a little too Scandinavian and post-modern for Betty's tastes, but more luxurious than anything she's ever known. The kitchen has butcher block counter tops and one of those fancy stoves that has five burners and is built into a kitchen island while the oven sits at a comfortable height in the far wall. She drops her bag down on the counter and goes straight for the refrigerator to fish out an unopened container of hummus and some pita bread. It's been a while, but she still remembers how to play hostess.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asks, cutting up the pita and arranging it on a plate with the hummus in a fancy bowl in the center.

Pepper makes a face at her coffee. "Yes, please. I don't even know why I got this. Wine?"

Betty shakes her head. It's a last minute invitation, and she doesn't have the usual dinner party essentials on hand. "I have grape soda. Which is almost but not quite entirely unlike wine."

Pepper doesn't get the _Hitchhiker's_ reference, and her expression is one of hastily suppressed horror. "What are you making?"

"Moroccan lamb stew."

"I have just the thing," Pepper says, slipping from the apartment without putting her shoes back on. Betty takes the opportunity to unpack the grocery bag and figure out another appetizer. Lamb stew is a slow dish. She hopes the evening doesn't prove too awkward, since they're going to be in it for the long haul, but it's too late to back out now.

She's just sliding sliced day-old baguette brushed with oil and topped with goat cheese into the oven when Pepper returns with a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. "You do drink?" Pepper asks. "I just assumed..."

"I do. Bruce doesn't, unless the water isn't safe, and I've lived off and on in Muslim countries for the last few years. I just got out of the habit of keeping it around. That looks perfect. Thank you."

They manage to find a cork screw in among the myriad of kitchen gadgets that came with the space and, unsurprisingly, there are wine glasses tucked into the back of one of the cabinets. Betty pulls the toasted goat cheese out of the oven and arranges it on a plate, snacks on some hummus, and sets herself to making the stew. She's got the onion and carrots sauteing and is dredging the lamb in flour before Pepper speaks again.

"Days like today make me wish I'd gone with my original plan and become an accountant. Actually, what am I saying? I did go with my original plan. Tony Stark just derailed it."

Betty smiles over her shoulder. "Bad day?"

"Stark Industries had a plant in Iowa back in the seventies that was working on some pretty experimental stuff." She grimaces. "It seems protecting the workers came dead last on the list of priorities. I got up close and personal with the fallout."

Betty winces. "Not good?"

"Awful." Pepper takes a gulp of her wine. "Hospice care awful. Children with birth defects awful. I have no idea how to make it right. I don't think I can."

"You're going to try. Sometimes that's all you can do."

"The only saving grace, if you can call it that, is that it seems like Howard had no idea, so at least I don't have to deal with Tony having a breakdown about his father on top of everything else." Pepper's expression is unreadable, and then she shakes it off and puts on a smile. "Look at me being a terrible guest. That smells amazing."

Betty takes the hint and changes the subject. They make the usual small talk. Talk of the weather turns into a mention of the start of Fall, which leads to the discovery that they both think the holiday season is more stress and trouble than it's worth. When that subject is done, they talk about the latest season of _Scandal_ and other TV shows they have loved, and by then the stew can be left alone, and they take the last of the appetizers and the wine into the living room. Pepper, it turns out, has never seen _Firefly_ , which is something that Betty intends to fix.

Two-thirds of the way through the first episode, Pepper has to make a second wine run, and Betty finishes up the stew. They decide against a proper table setting and just eat on the couch, losing themselves in the show and making a pretty good dent in the second bottle. She's distantly aware that they've both had a lot to drink, but she doesn't feel drunk, just warm. The jagged edges of her life seem softer and everything from Pepper's hair to the way Betty can't seem to get her watch off is very, very funny.

Okay, maybe she's a little drunk.

Three episodes in, Pepper declares that she likes this show. It's late now, and Pepper is wilting fast under the influence of a heavy meal and a lot of wine and the afghan that Betty knows for a fact has sleep-inducing powers, but they both decide on just one more episode.

Nine hours later, Betty wakes up with Bruce standing over her, her face pressed into the carpet. Pepper's hand hanging is off of the couch, resting on Betty's head.

"So how was your night?" Bruce asks. Betty grunts and accepts his offer of a hand up. He steadies her when she sways, and he is, wonderful man, holding a glass of water and a two aspirin.

Pepper jerks awake with an unladylike snort that makes Betty grin despite the raging headache between her eyes. She sits up slowly, like she's testing parts of her body to make sure they still work. "Did I get drunk and fall asleep on your couch?"

Pepper is embarrassed, and Betty is afraid she might be too embarrassed to come back, which is just not something that Betty is going to allow, so she puts on the brightest smile she can and says, "Yes. You should absolutely come by and do it again sometime."

Pepper smiles a little, tentatively, and says, "Next time less wine and more Captain Reynolds in tight pants?"

Betty swallows against the nausea, just knowing that a hasty run to the toilet is in her immediate future. "Possibly that would be better."


	2. We found a safe space.

Bruce finds a cozy cement wall and collapses next to it. Tony hovers until Bruce waves him away. He's got Tony's hoodie on, and his own mostly-destroyed pants, and he's spent so much of his life in bare feet that he barely notices them until the November air makes them hurt with cold. He pulls the hoodie closer and curls up and drifts. He's not sure how much time has passed before he's being shaken. He jerks, tries to curl deeper into himself.

"It's me. It's okay."

"Tony?"

There's a hand on his shoulder, warm and calloused. Bruce leans into it, at least until the other hand comes up to cuff him on the side of the head. "Come on. I got us a car."

The aftermath of a transformation is never pleasant, and this one is especially brutal. Bruce doesn't even try to refuse Tony's arm around his waist, doesn't bother to pretend he doesn't need to fist his hand in Tony's T-shirt to anchor himself as he stumbles to the rental car.

"Where are we?" Bruce asks, when he's leaning up against the shiny white sports car that Tony procured from somewhere.

"West Virginia. Middle of, more or less. In the parking lot of a Food Lion, if you want to get specific."

"Did I--"

"It's all good. We won, the bad guys got smashed, the good guys are only a little bruised, and no innocent civilians were killed in the making of this battle."

Bruce sighs. He'll get the play by play later. SHIELD will have reports on their reports that have to be reported on.

Tony snaps his fingers at the Iron Man suit. He points to the miniscule back seat and the suit folds itself up into a compact little briefcase before tucking itself neatly behind the driver's seat. It's surreal, sometimes, being with Tony. Like, there's the curve, three standard deviations ahead of the curve, and then Tony, squinting at them and wondering what they're all doing back there.

"The nearest Walmart is twenty minutes that way." He points in the general direction of the setting sun. "We need calories and clothing for the drive."

"You go ahead. Take the suit I can get myself hom--back to the tower." It's not like he doesn't have experience, waking up in strange places and figuring it out from there.

Tony rolls his eyes so hard Bruce is a little worried about muscle strain. "Get in, Banner."

He gets in.

Tony leaves him in the car when they get to Walmart. He comes back with jeans and a black t-shirt and a pair of silver sneakers and a full-zip Green Day hoodie. Bruce eyes him but doesn't comment. Tony has never quite figured out the art of shopping for others, and in a pinch he just buys what he would buy for himself. Still, Bruce is hardly in a position to complain, and they're more or less the same size anyway. It's not like he hasn't spent more than a few days in borrowed clothing. He gets changed right there in the car, not bothering to mention that Tony forgot to get him underwear.

"Eat up," Tony says when Bruce is dressed, tossing a plastic bag on his lap. There are bananas, almonds, dried fruit, crackers, cheese sticks, and dark chocolate. Bruce eats most of the almonds and all of the chocolate before he belatedly remembers that Tony might want some too, but Tony waves the offer away.

"Later, maybe."

The sky is deep blue, the last of the sunlight just disappearing as they pull out onto the main road. Bruce drifts off again. When he wakes up, they're on a back country road, taking the twisting hilltop turns too quickly. Bruce can just see Tony's face. He looks peaceful.

"I decided to take the scenic route. You don't mind?"

"No."

It's dark as pitch outside except for the swath of trees and asphalt illuminated by the high beams. Inside, it's almost too warm, but it feels good, comfortable, and there are snacks. Tony drives like the car is an extension of himself. It's surprisingly relaxing for all that they're going too fast and there are steep drops on either side of them with no guard rails to speak of. Tony flicks the radio on, skimming past Christian Rock, Country, Oldies, Rap, and settling on a college radio station that comes in fuzzy and is playing B.B. King. Bruce digs out the snacks and splits a cheese stick with Tony. They drive in silence for about an hour, hills and trees and the occasional suicidal possum all blending together.

Muddy Waters is on the radio when Tony says, "One Christmas my dad came to pick me up from school. I wasn't expecting him, figured he'd send a driver like always, but he came. We didn't say one word to each other the entire drive home, just listened to his B.B. King tapes. I never liked his music, but after he died. I don't know. I guess it reminds me of that night. It was--I mean, we were ten minutes from home when he finally opened his mouth to say he thought I'd done good work on my science fair project. It was a really good night, not just because he said that, but because the whole ride, it was...comfortable between us. We never had that."

Bruce tries and fails to imagine being comfortable with his father even for a night. They're quiet for a while. They pass through a small town, closed up for the night. There's an old general store with a neon sign in the window. A small post office is lit by a sickly yellow street light.

Tony is blowing a stop sign when he says, "Obie kind of ripped my heart out one night. Not exactly literally, but not just metaphorically, you know?"

"I know," Bruce says, carefully, evenly.

"That night, I curled up with Janis Joplin and a bottle of Jack Daniels and cried over my dad for the first time in pretty much ever."

Bruce smiles a little. "Junior year of college was...really good. Best year of my life maybe. Betty and I--this was before we started dating--Betty and I would go to this indie coffee shop with our beat up Fitzgerald and Kafka paperbacks proudly on display like--like badges of honor or something and we would have the most inane, naive conversations. We were convinced we knew everything. We thought we could fix all of the world's problems with the right scientific breakthroughs and a judicious application of Marxian theory." Tony snorted. "We were idiots, but we were happy idiots. After the--after the accident--after I left--I picked up a copy of Kerouac at a Goodwill in...I think I was in Florida at the time. I never even liked _On the Road_ but I read every last word and wept when it ended."

Tony smiles a little, not mocking or making fun, just understanding. Tony gets it. Bruce has never met anyone who _understands_ the way Tony does. They all understand grief, this mixed up little family that he's found himself with, and most of them understand being taken apart by circumstance and putting yourself back together in patchwork. But Tony gets the self-loathing and the desperate gratitude for any scrap of human connection and the mix of pride and fear that makes you try to pretend that you don't care, that you don't remember every genuine kindness ever done to you, collected and protected in your memories.

House of the Rising Sun comes on. Tony takes a mountain turn too fast, and the town disappears. It's just them in the car, wrapped up in the night and the music. Bruce relaxes into the seat. It's the safest he's felt in years.


	3. We're still figuring this out.

Baby showers rank just above giving interviews on CNN on the list of things that Pepper would rather get oral surgery than do but, somehow, even being the overworked CEO of a multinational corporation isn't enough to get her out of this piece of performance femininity. She deposits her gift on the groaning table, snags a too-sweet cupcake decorated with what is supposed to be a rattle, and sits as close to the wall as she can without seeming to be deliberately isolating herself. The woman of honor is a vice president, and deeply involved with R&D, so Pepper isn't surprised to see Betty come in a few minutes later.

Pepper is kind of hoping that Betty is as uninterested in all of this stuff as she is, but Betty runs her fingers over the presents almost reverently, spends a lot of time oohing and aahing over the cake and the decorations, and wants to see all of the ultrasound pictures, even though they all look exactly the same. So Pepper resigns herself to eating her cupcake and drinking her orange soda alone, and occasionally sending cynical text messages to Tony when it all gets to be too much.

She's in the middle of just such a message when she catches site of Betty leaving the room. Everyone's attention is on a hand knit baby blanket (why would you put that much work into something that's going to be puked on repeatedly?), and she slips out almost unnoticed. She looks pale, but Pepper is inclined to let her go, until ten minutes later when they're talking about cutting the cake and she still isn't back.

Pepper figures that she would want to be there for the cake, and leaves to check the bathroom. The bathroom looks empty, and Pepper turns to leave when she hears what sounds like a muffled scream from the last stall.

"Betty?"

There's no answer, only a choking noise that hurts to hear.

"Betty, it's Pepper. I just want to make sure you're okay." Which she clearly is not, but there's not okay and Not Okay, and while Pepper is inclined to think that this is a latter case, she also doesn't know how to deal with a Not Okay Betty. She pushes the door to the stall open, just a crack. Betty is curled up on herself on the floor, pressed against the far corner of the handicapped stall. She has the palm of her hand shoved into her mouth to muffle her sob. Her chest is heaving.

Pepper drops to her knees in front of her. "Are you--what--should I call Bruce?"

Betty shakes her head violently and Pepper hates herself for being disappointed, for hoping to give the responsibility to someone else. She's so bad at the emotional stuff. Always has been. She puts her hand on Betty's shoulder, and the woman leans into it, lets herself be drawn into a hug. It's awkward and uncomfortable, and Betty is sobbing freely and loudly now, right into Pepper's shoulder.

Pepper runs her hand back and forth across Betty's back, waiting until her sobs quiet and Betty is wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Stupid. Shouldn't have gone."

"To the baby shower?"

Betty wipes her nose and succeeds in smearing snot all over her face. Pepper gets up and wets a handful of paper towels. "Hold still," she says, and Betty consents to letting herself be cleaned up.

"Better," Pepper says, giving her a tentative little smile. There's a noise of someone else coming in, and Betty buries her head against her knees. Pepper whips out her cell phone (how did they ever survive without these ever present props?) and starts talking a mile a minute to no one at all about a business deal that's never going to happen, the noise of her chatter covering up the sound of Betty trying to get herself together. By the time the other women leave, Betty has gathered up her purse and managed to make herself some semblance of presentable.

"Let's go," Pepper says.

"We can't just leave. They'll wonder what happened."

"I'm the CEO and a consultant for the Avengers Initiative, and you're the publicly recognized expert on the Hulk. If we disappear, someone else will make the excuses for us."

One of the advantages of working in the building where they sometimes live is that they're just one elevator ride away from the couch and the fridge and the TV. Pepper takes Betty up to the private space that she shares with Tony, which is an area that she has absolutely forbidden to Tony's superhero frat brothers (and sister), but Betty isn't an Avenger so technically Pepper is still obeying her own rule. The last thing she needs is to be in the common room where someone might walk in on them, and Pepper doesn't feel comfortable inviting herself into Betty's space.

Betty is completely wrung out, and accepts a spot on the couch and the glass of water that Pepper puts into her hand without a word. She's staring off into space, leaving Pepper to stand in the kitchen, contemplating tea versus hot chocolate for comfort purposes. By the time she settles on tea and brings it out, Betty has gotten her shoes off and no longer looks like she's been hit by the emotional equivalent of a Mack truck.

"I've wanted kids for as long as I can remember," Betty says. "And just last week my aunt called and told me that my cousin was having a baby. Everyone always assumes it's me, you know. I've had near strangers tell me about fertility herbs. Who does that? And what am I supposed to say? Actually _I'm_ fine, but the man I want to have kids with got hit with eight sieverts of gamma radiation and while Erskien's formula saved him from a horrific death, it didn't manage to keep his fertility intact. Or, well there's always the possibility that the political winds will shift and my partner and I will have to go on the run again. I can't be worried about changing diapers if I'm trying to keep one step ahead of SHIELD." She scrubbed at her face. "I did not expect to go that far off the rails from one baby shower."

"It happens," Pepper said. Her phone was buzzing madly. She pulled it out and gave her schedule a quick once over, but there was nothing that she couldn't deal with later. She turned her phone on silent for everyone except Tony, Phil, and her assistant, sent a message to her PA telling her that she would be unavailable until further notice, and tossed her phone onto the end table. "What do you need?"

"You don't have to worry about me. I should get out of your hair."

"No! Not unless you want to. I want to help. I just need--" Pepper grimaces. She is so very bad at all of this. "--a project. I'm a mediocre cook, but I can manage a decent grilled cheese sandwich."

Betty gives her a smile that is somewhere between sad and genuinely amused. "That sounds...really good. And then I want to watch a movie with no babies and no romance and lots of explosions. Do you have _Alien_?"

Pepper manages to not make a face, and says, "Probably."

They don't actually have any cheese or any bread, which is a problem since Pepper has already promised grilled cheese. They keep a cook on standby, mostly for dinner parties and last minute guests of the Very Important kind. Pepper feels ridiculous calling Rita for grilled cheese, but twenty minutes later there is grilled gruyere on rustic bread with a side of baby greens salad and pickled watermelon, and Betty is laughing at the way Rita insists on creating a proper place setting for her creation even when the place in question is the coffee table.

 _Alien_ turns out to be better than Pepper expected, which is vaguely annoying because Tony has been trying to get her to watch it for years, and he's insufferable when he's right. Betty falls asleep around the time that . She's still asleep when the credits roll, so Pepper throws a blanket over her and goes into her office to send emails. When she's run out of ways to politely phrase, "stop screwing around and do your job already," she wanders back into the living room.

The couch is empty, the blanket is neatly folded, the dirty dishes are in the dishwasher, and Betty is no where to be found.

They don't speak of it again, but Pepper makes sure to offer to send Betty on a business trip every time a baby shower rolls around.


End file.
